Revelation 22:9-21

22:9 But ¹  he said to me, “Do not do this! ²  I am a fellow servant ³  with you and with your brothers the prophets, and with those who obey ⁴  the words of this book. Worship God!” 22:10 Then ⁵  he said to me, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy contained in this book, because the time is near. 22:11 The evildoer must continue to do evil, ⁶  and the one who is morally filthy ⁷  must continue to be filthy. The ⁸  one who is righteous must continue to act righteously, and the one who is holy must continue to be holy.”

22:12 (Look! I am coming soon,

and my reward is with me to pay ⁹  each one according to what he has done!

22:13 I am the Alpha and the Omega,

the first and the last,

the beginning and the end!) ¹⁰ 

22:14 Blessed are those who wash their robes so they can have access ¹¹  to the tree of life and can enter into the city by the gates. 22:15 Outside are the dogs and the sorcerers ¹²  and the sexually immoral, and the murderers, and the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood! ¹³ 

22:16 “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star!” ¹⁴  22:17 And the Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say: “Come!” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wants it take the water of life free of charge.

22:18 I testify to the one who hears the words of the prophecy contained in this book: If anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described ¹⁵  in this book. 22:19 And if anyone takes away from the words of this book of prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life ¹⁶  and in the holy city that are described in this book.

22:20 The one who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon!” Amen! Come, Lord Jesus! 22:21 The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. ¹⁷ 

¹ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “but” to indicate the contrast present here.

² tn On the elliptical expression ὅρα μή ({ora mh) BDAG 720 s.v. ὁράω B.2 states: “Elliptically…ὅρα μή (sc. ποιήσῃς) watch out! don’t do that! Rv 19:10; 22:9.”

³ tn Grk “fellow slave.” Though σύνδουλος (sundoulos) is here translated “fellow servant,” the word does not bear the connotation of a free individual serving another. See the note on the word “servants” in 1:1.

⁴ tn Grk “keep” (an idiom for obedience).

⁵ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the vision.

⁶ tn Grk “must do evil still.”

⁷ tn For this translation see L&N 88.258; the term refers to living in moral filth.

⁸ tn Grk “filthy, and the.” This is a continuation of the previous sentence in Greek, but because of the length and complexity of the construction a new sentence was started in the translation.

⁹ tn The Greek term may be translated either “pay” or “pay back” and has something of a double meaning here. However, because of the mention of “wages” (“reward,” another wordplay with two meanings) in the previous clause, the translation “pay” for ἀποδοῦναι (apodounai) was used here.

¹⁰ sn These lines are parenthetical, forming an aside to the narrative. The speaker here is the Lord Jesus Christ himself rather than the narrator.

¹¹ tn Grk “so that there will be to them authority over the tree of life.”

¹² tn On the term φάρμακοι (farmakoi) see L&N 53.101.

¹³ tn Or “lying,” “deceit.”

¹⁴ tn On this expression BDAG 892 s.v. πρωϊνός states, “early, belonging to the morning ὁ ἀστὴρ ὁ πρ. the morning star, Venus Rv 2:28; 22:16.”

¹⁵ tn Grk “written.”

¹⁶ tc The Textus Receptus, on which the KJV rests, reads “the book” of life (ἀπὸ βίβλου, apo biblou) instead of “the tree” of life. When the Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus translated the NT he had access to no Greek mss for the last six verses of Revelation. So he translated the Latin Vulgate back into Greek at this point. As a result he created seventeen textual variants which were not in any Greek mss. The most notorious of these is this reading. It is thus decidedly inauthentic, while “the tree” of life, found in the best and virtually all Greek mss, is clearly authentic. The confusion was most likely due to an intra-Latin switch: The form of the word for “tree” in Latin in this passage is ligno; the word for “book” is libro. The two-letter difference accounts for an accidental alteration in some Latin mss; that “book of life” as well as “tree of life” is a common expression in the Apocalypse probably accounts for why this was not noticed by Erasmus or the KJV translators. (This textual problem is not discussed in NA²⁷.)

¹⁷ tc Most mss (א Ï) read “amen” (ἀμήν, amhn) after “all” (πάντων, pantwn). It is, however, not found in other important mss (A 1006 1841 pc). It is easier to account for its addition than its omission from the text if original. Such a conclusion is routinely added by scribes to NT books because a few of these books originally had such an ending (cf. Rom 16:27; Gal 6:18; Jude 25). A majority of Greek witnesses have the concluding ἀμήν in every NT book except Acts, James, and 3 John (and even in these books, ἀμήν is found in some witnesses). It is thus a predictable variant.